Food Crafts!

If there is a sober (or at least semi-sober) activity I love the most, I think it is food crafting. My friends and I decided that's what we call making food items. It sounds more fun than anything else we could think of. We kegged our most recent beer last night, and I think that made me want to make more.

Since I am still funemployed (although working on it!), I have all the time in the world to make things. While walking at Target today, I decided that I needed to make a pie. Never made a pie before, but now seems like a good time to start! I bought the cherry filling, but I decided to make the dough myself. Which I hadn't done before either. When I got to Giant Eagle, I decided today was also a day to make another batch of hot sauce. I get a lot of questions when I buy a giant produce bag full of habaneros - I have had cashiers ask me if I know what I am buying. I always like to think that is a good sign of how my hot sauce will turn out. Before I left the produce section, I decided that I was going to make ginger ale today as well.

I started off with the ginger ale because it can take the longest to make. I make mine using a modified version of this Alton Brown recipe. I quadruple the ginger, halve the sugar, and leave the lemon out entirely. I also use twice the amount of water to get more out of it. I have worked on this over the past few recipes to make it the taste I like. There is nothing quite like a whiskey ginger with homemade ginger ale. Instead of tasting like sugar that might have seen ginger in the distant past, the ginger flavor can really pop! Grating that much ginger is a super pain though. I usually take a break halfway through so my wrist isn't screaming at me.

I did the pie crust next. I used this Allrecipes.com version of pie crust. Since I had never made pie crust before, I chose to follow the recipe. One thing I never understood in recipes was "when the dough comes together." I first came across it while making Cheez-Its. When you see it, you will know. The dough goes from being weird crumbly bits and you start despairing that you have screwed it up and used all your butter, and then it magically looks like dough you have seen other people use. It isn't exactly the prettiest thing in the world, but it worked for my very first attempt (cherry in case you were wondering).

Hot sauce was last because I had to wash the food processor from the pie crust. (I put salsa chicken in the Crockpot while I was waiting for the pieces to dry off a bit). I base my recipe off of this one, but I don't follow it to the letter. I know - shocking!! I use a bunch of habanero peppers and some jalapenos. I also guess on the amount of garlic. Making hot sauce at home is awesome (in both the cool way and the terrifying way). I highly recommend putting Vick's Vaporub under your nose so you can breathe the whole time. I also wear a rubber glove on the hand I am holding the peppers with. I know this sounds really overkill, but I have definitely gotten pepper juice in my eyes after doing this. 0/10 do not recommend.

I was so productive today (I went grocery shopping and to the Post Office in addition to all of these food crafts) that Caleb asked me if I was trying to make up for something he didn't know about yet. I would consider that a win!